Meet the finalists in the 2026 European Inventor Award
Congratulations to the twelve finalists who have been selected for the 2026 European Inventor Award. These outstanding inventors work across biotechnology, healthcare, renewable energy, semiconductors, digital tech, food tech, quantum, rail and advanced manufacturing. By confronting some of the greatest challenges of our time, their work is paving the way for a more sustainable and prosperous world.
Now that the finalists have been revealed, voting for the Popular Prize is officially open via the platform linked below. You may vote for three finalists per day until the platform closes during the livestream ceremony in Berlin on 2 July. The Popular Prize winner will be determined through a 50/50 combination of jury votes and public participation. All other winners in the four categories here below will be revealed during the ceremony on 2 July.
Meet the finalists
Industry
- Giuseppe Crippa†, Roberto Crippa, Stefano Felici, Riccardo Vettori, Raffaele Vallauri, Flavio Maggioni and team (Italy): Probe card advancements
- Evangelos Eleftheriou and team (Switzerland/Greece): Contributions to digital storage technologies
- Angeliki Triantafyllou (Greece/Sweden): Improved enzymatic process to prepare oat drinks
SMEs
- Jan Čmelík and team (Czech Republic): Advancements in nanofibre manufacturing
- Przemek Ben Paczek and team (Poland): Retrofitting rail with magnetic propulsion
- Franck Zal (France): Unlocking the therapeutic potential of marine worms
Research
- Adrian V.S. Hill (Ireland/United Kingdom): Highly effective malaria vaccine
- Mikko Möttönen (Finland): Cryogenic microwave sensor for quantum computing
- Paula Videira and team (Portugal): Antibody for identifying and targeting cancer
Non-EPO Countries
- Yu Haijun and Xie Yinghao (China): Smart battery recycling
- Emily Morris and Thorsten Stoesser (United States/Germany): Novel distributed hydropower generation systems
- Aníbal Montalva Rodríguez and Miguel Ángel Fernández Donoso (Chile): Living biofilter for efficient air purification
The Lifetime Achievement winner will be announced on 10 June.
